Be a part of the Burma Hub, London School of Economics Burma Society

Hello, Zarni here.

There’s a group of LSE students who have traveled to Burma, and came back rather shocked to learn the sorry state of ordinary citizens languishing quietly under a horrendously backward military regime. They are in the process of setting up a Burma Society at the LSE. I would urge you to participate in their future web fora, etc. These students are no feel-good, do-gooders looking for a cause to support. They saw with their own eyes a society dying of a thousand cuts (as opposed to a single blow of civil war or foreign invasion).

What they witnessed goes against the current faddish trend among INGOs and certain self-interested local civilian elites of talking up the power of the grassroots and all that.

The entire education and healthcare systems have crumbled, for all intents and purposes. The bureaucracy at all levels lives off bribes. The big generals and their cronies feel they make up the most brilliant specimen of eco-military alliance since the country's independence in 1948, sitting on a massive flow of cash off the sales of natural resources - never mind the ecological disaster(s) that will result from the reckless rape of the country's environment, or that their economic leadership has led to a situation where several million Burmese emigrate or wonder across borders in search of employment.

As very bright students at one of the world's most intellectually vibrant universities, these students understand what many an expert on Burma fails to see: a country with a population of 50 million of which 40% are youths, many of whom are ill-educated or completely uneducated, cannot be said to have any future at all. That's about 20 million people ill-equipped intellectually and with little or no proper schooling, save a tiny number of elite children and students who can afford private tuition or education abroad.

The LSE students wish to draw public attention to the magnitude of the challenges facing Burma. It would be good if you would all lend a helping hand in getting this public hub off the ground.